Back when I was working in DC, I noticed this quite a bit about religion reporting: most religion reporters had no idea what they were talking about, and anyone even passably familiar with the topics would laugh at them. We used to say that religion reporters should know as much about religion as sports reporters knew about their particular sport, then things might be covered a bit more accurately.

The same can very much be said about news reporting on guns. The amount of ignorance is staggering. The worst bit is that they have no idea how ignorant they sound. They really think they know what they’re talking about.

The way journos cover all things guns, religion, and conservative is the unholy product of WHERE most of these media centers are located and WHO they attract into the profession.

Obviously, the media center of the universe is NYC, the place of my birth and a groupthink bubble if there ever was one. For all Noo Yawkez’ tawk about themselves being so tough, open-minded, and worldly -it is exactly the opposite. For them, them folks West of the Hudson are something lesser. Just ask ’em.

Drop into that bubble a shiny new Mk 1, Mod 1 J-school grad. You know the type because there really is only one type – the eternal 17 year old who yearns to make the world a better place and to stick it to The Man a la Woodward and Bernstein. They may not have any real-life background with business, government, religion, science, or agriculture – let alone guns. But damn if they aren’t dead-on correct about everything. Oh and they look good on the TeeVee so they are an authority. Just ask ’em.

What you get in the end are people who treat gun owners, the religious, and those who take quite literally the crap that those horrible slaveholders jotted down in the Constitution as dangerous, semi-interesting aliens to be studied from afar lest they cause harm to their comfy little bubble.

And then add that all their better and leaders encourage the bubble thinking Lakoff style.

Since it keeps the Outer Party in line.

Just look at how laughable the false flags and Red Team thinking these goobers are. Since they activly shun the oppositions messages and ideas they’re totally lost, but that’s okay because they’re so much, much smarter

And oh yah there’s such a strong colleation with the biggest and proudest New Yorkers being the most naive, ignorant, and credulous fools.

A thing we miss here is that I believe the majority of
these people DO NOT WANT sound info on guns and laws. I
suspect that they fear being too knowledgeable (i.e,
pointing out a Glock vs 1911 or AR vs AK etc)-they may fear being shunned by their peers. Here in the home of the UW Madison, there’s apparently a leftist prof (redundancy?)who proudly noted that he’d never read any Ayn Rand – his tone implied that he feared being
brainwashed or poisoned or something. The ‘courage’
of your ‘convictions’, anyone?..
“My mind is made up – don’t confuse me with the facts…”

TV makes a great point. If they knew the difference between a Semi-Auto and a Machine-gun, then it would be lying when they mashed up the two. As it is now, it is just incompetance.

The thing is, if Republican is wrong about something, then it is a lie. But if the media or left (same thing) lie about something, they were just wrong.

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” –If Clinton had said this, it would have been simply wrong. But because it was Bush, it was a lie…even though the British did report they learned it…and Clinton thought the same thing.

Xman: To be fairer still, HL was using “wrong/lie” to refer to their characterization rather than an actual truth claim of his own.

(My favorite part of the imbroglio is how Joe Wilson’s own report to the CIA, as revealed by the Robb-Silberman report, says that the Nigerien government told him that they thought the Iraqis were trying to buy Yellowcake – and then Wilson was trying to tell us that Obviously Iraq Never Tried To Buy Yellowcake.

What would the local government know compared to Joe Wilson?)

(And to be absolutely scrupulous with our facts, the fact that Iraq had yellowcake [indisputable, as you showed] does not establish or deny the truth of claims that they bought (or sought) any from Niger at any point, let alone recently-as-of-2001-or-so.

It makes it staggeringly credible, but doesn’t prove it; to do that, we’d have to know the provenance of the Hussein-era uranium stockpile, which as far as I know is simply lost to history.)